Leveling
by girl from the lake cottage
Summary: A glance into the relationship between Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons.
1. Introduction

_At first, when they were young MIT undergrads, they gave each other space. Opposite ends of the hologram displays. Opposite sides of the lab table. Separate stacks of books in the library. Lunch trays a polite distance apart. Distance._

* * *

It was embarrassing, that first meeting in the hallway outside of their advisor's office. Apparently someone in Admissions thought it would be _easier_, more _appropriate_, if they shoved the two sixteen-year-old wunderkinds together in the same classes. _All_ of the same classes. General Studies, Molecular Biology, British Literature, Analytical Chemistry. Eighteen credits, two audits. Same advisor. Different dorm rooms, thankfully. Leo Fitz was absolutely certain that no one could ever force him to share close quarters with a girl. _Especially_ a girl like Jemma Simmons.

He had been waiting to meet about class schedules and credit hours, and so was the girl sitting next to him. College furniture was stiff and uncomfortable and brought him into too close of proximity with her. At first he thought that the best option was to avoid eye contact, but his backpack had fallen against her leg three times in the past three minutes, and she kept righting it for him. He thought it was only polite to commence an introduction.

Later, years later, he would tell her that she seemed so put-together, so at ease with herself. At the moment, though, he couldn't even bring himself to look her in the eye. He just stuck out his hand and said,

"Fitz. Leo Fitz. Most call me Fitz. Engineering."

He couldn't even put complete sentences together, but she didn't notice. Or at least she pretended not to. Her hand slid effortlessly into his, though he did notice that she was twirling a strand of hair clockwise with her left hand. Maybe she wasn't as at ease as he assumed.

"I'm Jemma Simmons, and I'm still trying to decide on a program." Her accent caught him, forcing him to look up to see a smiling face and brown eyes. "You're from Scotland?"

"And you're from London." It was a statement of fact, not a question. "You're also in all of my classes." He tried to temper his voice, not letting the irritation show, but failed miserably. Her smile faded a bit, but she tried to slide past his tone.

"I think _you're _in all of _my_ classes. I was rather hoping to escape notice, but being-"

"-sixteen and a freshmen doesn't quite make you invisible." He broke in, causing her to blush.

"I-" she stammered, her eyes almost chastising him. "I thought you-"

Now _he _was blushing. Being told off by a girl in the first week at uni. Wouldn't his mother be proud. He was about to apologize and try to explain something about how the combination of culture shock and jet lag, in addition to horrendous cafeteria food and a less-than-adequate civil engineering section in the library, could lead to uncharacteristically emotional and short-tempered outbursts when the door to the office opened and someone called his name.

He stood, grabbed his bag, and didn't say goodbye.

* * *

_They didn't make eye contact for months._


	2. Synchronization

_Then, year three. They realized, at age eighteen, that there was no one else quite like… each other. Trays inched closer during animated discussions of the latest biomechanical theories. Books jumbled on tabletops, often ending up in the wrong backpack after late-night study sessions. Shoulders brushed as they hunched over lab tables and stood behind holograms. Distance compacted._

* * *

"Fitz, you forgot to email Dr. Benson about scheduling time in the lab. _Again_."

Jemma stormed into Fitz's dorm room, closing the door with what was probably a little too much force. She wasn't worried about disturbing his hall. Boys were incompetent idiots who needed a wake up call, and if door slamming would accomplish the task, then she would keep on slamming doors.

Fitz's roommate Paul looked up from his computer, saw the look on Jemma's face, and immediately started putting his books into his backpack. He glanced down at Fitz, who was sprawled across a mountain of paperwork on the floor with a look of terror frozen on his face.

"Um, I'll just be at the library, I guess," Paul said over his shoulder as he walked out the door, dodging around Jemma as if accidentally brushing against her would cause an explosion. "Text me if you want to meet up for dinner." He _gently _closed the door, leaving a frozen Fitz looking up at a glaring Jemma.

"Jemma, I'm sorry. I just got caught up in-"

"Fitz, I swear on all that is holy that if this-"

Their words ran over each other and then faded into nothing. Fitz sat up and started to obsessively straighten all of the papers that were scattered around him on the floor. He was a compulsive organizer when he got nervous. Jemma sank to the ground, leaning her back against the door and closing her eyes. She was unnaturally close to tears.

She hardly ever cried, except during movies and maybe when reading the last Harry Potter book over the past summer. Her friends were always a little concerned about the fact that she had never shed a tear over a boy, ever, but she just kept explaining to them that heartbreak came out of her in different ways. Like analyzing an actual heart for cancerous abnormalities. Or developing a new way to address the issue of calcification in heart valves. Broken hearts were kind of her thing.

But she hardly ever cried.

Except now, when stupid, idiotic Leo Fitz managed to ensure that her latest grade would be no higher than a B, which was completely unacceptable and entirely his fault.

She squeezed her eyes even more tightly closed, pressing her hands against the cool tile of the floor. She could hear Fitz still shuffling papers around, probably trying to figure out an appropriate apology. At least he'd _better_ be coming up with an appropriate apology.

"Jemma…" His voice was soft, hesitant. She sighed, still not opening her eyes. More shuffling, then she felt him sit next to her, close enough to feel the brush of his sleeve against hers but still not quite touching. By his proximity, she guessed he was leaning against his closet door, probably with legs tucked up and arms crossed.

"You know me better than anyone else at this damn school." He was serious. His voice deepened and accent broadened when he was serious. He sounded the same way he had the time he told her he was afraid to go back to Glasgow because America had changed him too much.

She kept her eyes closed, listening. The urge to cry was diminishing. Her own heartbeat was loud in her mind. She wondered if he could hear it, though she knew that such an occurrence was physically impossible.

"I think I'm going to fail my reactor kinetics lab." His voice had become so quiet she could hardly hear what he was saying. "Dr. Michaelson said that my last write-up was lazy and unprofessional, and that my papers have been increasingly disjointed and poorly written."

His words were tinged with defeat, and she could hardly bear it. He might annoy her and frustrate her and cause her to slam doors and almost-but-not-quite cry, but Leo Fitz was the best friend she'd ever had. He understood her like no one else could. The past two years of competing with him for the highest marks and studying for horrifying organic chemistry exams and forming their own UK Appreciation Society had taught her that the boy she had originally written off as rude and selfish was actually one of the most caring people she had ever met.

She opened her eyes and looked over to see him resting his head on his knees, staring off into space. He looked exhausted, and she realized with a shock that it had been at least three days since she had actually seen him smile. And she, being so wrapped up in her own petty issues, had completely neglected to ask him what was wrong.

"Fitz." Her hand reached out to touch his shoulder, smoothing away the creases of his shirt. He looked at her, blue eyes watery and red-rimmed and tired. God, Fitz looked tired. "You should've told me."

He shook his head, shrugging off her hand. "No. It's not your problem. You're always the responsible one, the conscientious one. Everyone knows that. I just…" His voice broke, and for once he sounded like the eighteen year old he was, stuck with the brain of a brilliant engineer, an ocean away from home.

"You're just smarter than all of them, and they don't want you to know how inferior that makes them feel," she finished for him, shifting closer so that she could hold his hand. She sat parallel to him, their two bodies in alignment, feet tucked up beneath, right and left knees almost touching, arms pressed up against each other. They breathed in sync. _In, out. In, out. In, out._

His hand pressed hers. "Thanks, Jem. Do you – do you think you could reserve the lab for tomorrow night? I'm free." And he was sorry. She could hear his apology washing over every syllable, filling the folds in her heart.

She squeezed his hand back. "Of course. But only if you let me look over your reactor kinetics papers. Obviously you need all the help you can get." Reactor kinetics. She was going to kick herself later for offering, but it was Fitz.

"Well, beggars can't be choosers. At least that's what my Gram says." She heard a hint of laughter tingeing his voice.

And just a smidge of a smile wove its way across his face as she began to sort the stacks of papers. Lab reports on the left, formal papers on the right, notes in the middle. Just the way she knew he would've stacked them himself.

* * *

_They became Fitzsimmons. Two parts of a single whole. _


	3. Oscillation

_When Jemma was trying (for what she said was the absolute last time) to convince Fitz to accept the position at the Academy, it was without thought to sit mirrored on the floor of her kitchen, knees touching, bodies tilted toward each other._

_And when she went over to Fitz's apartment to help him pack, it didn't even register how many of her books and papers and pens were scattered haphazardly around his living room, a spare desk drawer devoted to all of the hair ties and DVDs and lotion bottles and lip balms that she inevitably left in her wake._

_Spinning towards each other without even knowing._

* * *

If Jemma kept on describing the Academy using the word _brilliant _he was going to start throwing things. Sharp, high-mass things that would become excellent projectiles after an increase in linear momentum.

She had come over after another late night in the lab under the guise of offering him a greasy hamburger for dinner, but Fitz knew that his best friend was only there to make sure he started boxing up the books in the living room. It was exactly what she began to do when she breezed past him with barely a "hello".

She sat on the floor, sorting through his stacks of textbooks and George R.R. Martin novels and babbling on about their upcoming "grand adventure", while he stacked DVDs into genre-specific piles. Almost half of them were Jemma's – _Dead Poet's Society_ and _Inception_ and _Harry Potter_.

"Fitz, have you heard about the new positioning servos that they've developed? And I forwarded you an email about their new optomechanics specialist, who apparently is an absolute genius when it comes to optical resonators. And cybernetics? Fitz, it's most positively-"

"Jemma."

"Brilliant. Not to mention the-"

"Jemma."

"Chance that we might actually be able to-"

He reached over and put his hand across her mouth. Her eyes widened at the unexpected contact, which meant that she didn't realize how much she'd been talking. With his other hand he took the _Gen Op_ textbook she was holding and set it down on the couch. She started tugging at the hand clamped over her mouth, but he shook his head.

"Jems, listen to me." He slowly inched his hand away, hoping that she wasn't going to start up again. Or bite him. She opened her mouth but all it took was a look and she closed it. He went back to stacking movies, something to keep his hands busy so that his thoughts could clear.

"You know that I made my decision. Weeks ago. Was I hesitant? Yes. Will I regret it? Maybe. But I made my choice. And I'm going with you. You don't have to keep talking up the program, because I already know. I did the research."

Hours of research. Scrolling through archived websites, tracing what little information was made avaliable to the public. Calling the phone numbers his recruiter had given him, asking lots of questions, getting fewer answers. He'd even sent Tony Stark an email, _the_ Tony Stark, who had been surprisingly honest in his reply.

_I'm not going to say that you'll change the world, or even save lives_. _We leave those decisions to the gods,_ Mr. Stark had written. _But I can say this, Leo Fitz. You are going to have one hell of a life if you say no. And I don't mean that in a good way. You'll ask yourself every day if you made the right choice. You will never have an answer. If you say yes? You'll have a hell of a life then, too. And I mean that in the best way possible. You're answer will change every single day. But at least you'll have one._

"I've lived my life in a lab, Jemma. I tinker with inanimate objects and write computer programs and read back issues of _Ispectrum_. I've visited exactly two countries, the U.K. and the U.S. And I've been content with that."

He paused, _Braveheart_ in one hand, _True Grit_ in the other. Jemma was tracing patterns in the carpet, but he could tell that she was still paying close attention. Both films went into the "lessons learned" pile. _The Fellowship of the Ring_ into "journeys". _The Count of Monte Cristo _into "adaptations that will never live up to the book".

"But who knows what I can do out there?" He pointed towards the window, the door, the Boston summer evening outside. "What _we_ can do?_ You_ are the brilliant one, Jemma, not any idiotic program that a government invented. You're the one who can save people from monsters." Fitz didn't have to look at her to know that she was blushing. "There really wasn't much of a choice at all, I guess."

"I always knew what my answer would be."

Silence.

Fitz had run out of words. It was a rare occurrence. His brain usually worked so fast that his mouth simply ran to catch up. He looked over at Jemma, noting the way she was staring at the empty shelves in front of her. She was still thinking, still processing.

He tugged her ponytail.

"Jemma."

Her eyes, when they turned towards him, caused a tiny part of his heart to turn over. She looked so scared, so young. He had thought that _he_ was the hesitant one, the cautious, guarded one. He realized with a jolt that the real reason she kept gushing about the future was because she was terrified of it.

It was the easiest thing in the world to do what he did next, picking up her hand and pulling her over to sit next to him, her shoulder tucked under his, his arm coming up to wrap around her. Disregarding the stacks of books and movies and remnants of life that had piled up around them, he rubbed circles into her shoulder.

He felt her sigh against him, almost a sob.

"You know, Fitz, that I'm absolutely, positively certain that I'm going to fail."

He let out a soft laugh. "Really, Jems. Please tell me when _that's _ever happened to you."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. "P.E. Sixth grade. Tumbling."

"P.E. doesn't even count."

"Shut up. Yes it does."

"Anything that requires a quantitative measurement of physical endurance absolutely, certainly, positively does _not_ count."

"You're only saying that because _you_ failed folk dancing sophomore year."

"Maybe."

"_Maybe_ doesn't even begin to cover it." She started throwing packing peanuts at him. "You couldn't tell the difference between a waltz and a schottische."

He grinned, attempting to wrap her in an enormous sheet of bubble wrap. "They're basically the same."

"Moving your feet in time to music does not mean that two dances are the same. Just because you're bad at dancing -"

Her smile nearly blinded him with it's brilliance.

* * *

_The truth about spinning towards someone: the closer and closer you are, the more off-kilter your world becomes._


End file.
